


A Liar's Liar, and a Relic

by thexonexwhoxwanders



Category: Fallout (Video Games), Fallout 4
Genre: Angst, F/M, Fluff and Angst, Humor, Slow Burn, Strong Female Characters
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-05-09
Updated: 2018-10-10
Packaged: 2019-05-04 08:15:38
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 20,984
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14588823
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thexonexwhoxwanders/pseuds/thexonexwhoxwanders
Summary: He thought he knew everything about her, but she's hard to figure out. And he realizes, in their search for her missing brother, that maybe she's figuring him out instead. AU Deacon/F!SS





	1. Chapter 1

 

He watched her rise from the vault like a phoenix, the hot Wasteland air tugging at the dark, wet curls pushing into her eyes. Like one of those brief lights that streaks across the night sky, he couldn’t take his eyes off her – newly awakened, she was both unsteady and perfectly balanced, frightened and tough as nails. A mess of contradictory things all shoved into one human being older than the War that broke the world into what it was.

He was safe where he stood, a hundred meters away. Perched atop a rusted-out truck, the sun blazing fiercely behind him.  Through the scope of his rifle, he watched as she took in her surroundings, as the emotion played out on her face: the thawing fear, replaced by dread, soon to be overcome by a silent, dark sort of acceptance. The relic’s eyes gazed out over the Wasteland slowly – was she seeing what _was_ , or what it used to be? – moving in a single arc to land, finally, at Sanctuary Hills, nestled below the hilltop in its abandoned valley.

For a moment, he thought something like heartbreak shone in her eyes, but it was soon gone. The pre-War relic sucked in one more breath, shoved her drying hair out of her face, and began the short descent towards the old suburb without another moment’s hesitation.

 

000

 

Deacon watched her for weeks. He was there, from the moment she reunited with her Mr. Handy to the Deathclaw she slaughtered in Concord, to her arrival at Diamond City. Wearing different disguises, clothes, speaking in different accents and walking with an odd gait, here and there – but he was with her. It felt wrong to leave. Like leaving a kid to fend for itself out in the big brave new world.

Except, he’d come to find out she wasn’t so helpless after all. Wasn’t much of a surprise, when he thought about it. She was the sister of _him_. And that Deathclaw – honestly, seeing such a small woman gun that fucker down with just a shotgun? That tickled him pink. Really, it did. It also made him wary. From what he’d heard of the Father’s sister, she was some lawyer, back in the old world. A paper-pushing, office-dwelling nobody.

But the woman he was seeing? She was… well, she was _something_ , all right. 

So he knew about the pre-War relic before the rumors started circulating the Commonwealth. Rumors of a 200-something-year-old vault dweller raging through the ‘Wealth, slaughtering entire encampments of raiders, gunning down supermutants, and solving everyone’s goddamn problems from fucking generator issues to full-on blood feuds. Shit. Woman never took a break.

But what was more – what really fucking mattered - he knew _who_ she was. No one else did. From what he understood, she went by different names, crafting one every time she reached a new place. He couldn’t help the fucking admiration he had felt at that – smart woman. Out of time, out of place – but still keeping people on their toes. Fucking insane. He just itched to talk to her, to hear what sort of name she’d give him, see that notorious fierceness in her eyes face-to-face. Not through the scope of his sniper or binoculars. Not through stolen glances across the room. Face to face. The way it mattered.

But Deacon was patient. It wasn’t time, yet. Things needed to work in a certain order, fall in place. She had to come to him. So he would wait.

 

000

 

She worked her way through the Freedom Trail faster than he had anticipated. Deacon found himself waiting with Desdemona and Glory in the cleared-out passage of the crypt under the Old North Church, twiddling his fucking thumbs and counting the gunshots echoing through the cavern as she made her way towards them, a mere three weeks after he had finally left her. She’d proven herself to him, whether she knew it or not – she could handle herself. Last he saw her, she was clearing out the old Castle with Preston Garvey, acting as the new General of the Minutemen.

Now she was here, and part of him felt so _electrified_ at that prospect. He couldn’t contain it, his sudden impatience, his anxiousness, all seeping out through his restless hands and shifting feet. Desdemona caught his eye more than once, clearly freaked the fuck out over his rare inability to remain carefully blank. He didn’t care. The woman was _here_ and it was time.

They listened, barely carrying a single breath between the three of them, as the relic entered the password to the crypt. Clever, clever woman – got it right on the first try.

Stone ground against stone, shrieking while the secret doorway lurched backwards before it parted, revealing the form of a petite, average-height woman on the other side.

Thank god for the sunglasses. Deacon was sure he was looking at her like she was a fucking lollipop, a dead-giveaway that he already knew her.

Desdemona stepped up, shoulders taut, and jutted her chin out to the stranger. The relic. “We’ve heard you’ve been working your ass off to find us. Wanna tell me why?”

The relic looked momentarily confused. Dust smudged her cheek, likely acquired on the trek down through the catacombs. There was some blood, too, drying near her hairline. Deacon couldn’t tell if it was hers or someone else’s. Pursing her lips and simultaneously sizing Desdemona up with the eyes of a hawk, the relic finally said, “I was told to follow the Freedom Trail. I didn’t realize…” she paused and squinted up at them, noting Glory’s hostile stance, Deacon’s casually crossed arms. Confusion tainted her tone. “ _Who_ are you supposed to be?”

He could’ve laughed. Really. Des would’ve been pissed, so he kept it in check, but that was a hell of an entrance. And the look on Desdemona’s face – that shit was priceless. He’d never seen her look so floored, had never made her face flush red from anger so quickly before. Not from lack of trying.

Silent, Desdemona glanced over at him, then Glory, hands twitching at her sides. Likely, she wanted to shoot this stranger who had found their new HQ, this unknown element who didn’t even know who the fuck they were but was here, on their turf, anyway. She could try, but Deacon wouldn’t let her. He was faster. Could have the gun that was holstered at her side out of reach within a second.

“Who told you to follow the Freedom Trail?” Desdemona finally asked, her tone halting and sharp. That one, she took shit from no one.

The relic read the tension in the room. Her hand trailed closer to her own weapon, but she remained calm. “Heard it from a couple of sources, really. First Preston Garvey. A Minuteman Lieutenant. Then a reporter in Diamond City. She said something about… the Institute? And you saving people. Synths. From them.”

As if it were possible, Desdemona’s chin jutted further in the air. “And if we do?”

The relic looked appeased at this. She knew what they were – that they did, in fact, save synths, fight the Institute, the whole she-bang, all nine yards of the whole fucking schtick. “Then I think you’ve found someone sympathetic to your cause.”

 

000

 

Their first mission together went eerily smoothly. Really. Charmer struck the Gen 1s and 2s down like the cybernetic Angel of Death. Who moved like that? Fought like that? Someone who was trained. Though his respect for her grew during that first op, his wariness multiplied tenfold. Deacon had to be careful. This woman… she was sharp, strong, and perceptive.  She was honestly a little bit like him.

That was dangerous.

“Shit, you really cleared this place out,” he remarked quietly, nudging the shattered body of a Gen 1 with the toe of his boot, his mouth set in a firm line but his tone impressed.

He could feel her eyes on him from across the room. She’d stopped at a safe they’d come across right before they were ready to leave, head back to HQ. Said she was a decent lock-picker. Decent wasn’t the word for it. She had it open and was pocketing its contents in under a minute.

“Guess I’m not too bad at the whole stealth thing, huh?” she asked with some triumph, referring to their earlier debate on whether a full-frontal attack or a trip through the escape tunnels would be better. Charmer was savage, brutal: she wanted the full-frontal attack. Said she could snatch up the prototype in a matter of minutes, if she had it her way. He persuaded her – all right, _challenged_ her – to try his way, mostly for his own amusement. She didn’t disappoint.

Charmer was a master spy in the making. He just knew it. And that was… well, it wasn’t what he had expected.

“Guess not,” he allowed, shielding the suspicion swarming his thoughts from seeping into his tone.  He watched her rise to her full height again, her pack weighed down with her new finds, and stride towards the doorway. Calm. Collected. Commanding.

No, she wasn’t what he expected at all.

 

000

 

They were shacked up in an abandoned schoolhouse for the night, too far from HQ to make it there before sunup. They cleared the place together, darting in and out of rooms, finding some sort of synch with one another – something Deacon had never really had with anyone, not even Glory. Glory, who couldn’t adapt to someone else’s methods, who didn’t _want_ to. But Charmer – she met him in the middle. Hell, closer to his side than in the middle, even. She was generous.

It nagged at him. Ate away at his thoughts as he watched her cook a mierulek stew over the fire he’d started not long ago. Her expression was blank, her eyes layered as if she were deep in thought, staring down into the churning pot with half a presence. He wondered what was playing through her mind, what had stolen her away from reality and dragged her back inside her head. He didn’t know her outside of what he had observed for several weeks, but Charmer seemed like the thoughtful type. Like she sometimes needed the silence, to work through her mind.

When she spoke, it caught him off guard. He was too busy memorizing the details of her face, the exact color of her eyes – because the Institute had gotten better and better with their new synths, better every day – when she addressed him. He, such a fool, even flinched.

“You’ve always been a spy?”

Deacon tensed, but didn’t show it. Shades still covering his eyes, he knew he looked composed. “Always been so nosy?” he threw back at her, but his tone was good-natured.

Charmer fixed him with a look that cut through his bullshit. “All right, another question. Why the Railroad?”

He watched her carefully, watched the slender hand that stirred the stew and the strong sinews of muscle that corded her arms, watched the fire dance across her collarbones and cast her face in flickering shades of red. He drew out a sigh, really dramatizing it, playing it up for proper effect, and let his shoulders fall a little. “Might come as a surprise to you, but I’m a synth.” He met her gaze, canting his head up towards her, his eyes covered and hers bare. “So I guess that speaks for itself.”

“A synth?” Charmer squinted at him, eyes trailing up and down, as if she could see through the flesh and the bones and find the truth – that elusive, ugly truth – he always dangled just out of reach. After a moment, he couldn’t read her expression. She closed herself off, shut down, almost like a machine. She stared back at him, mouth relaxed, in that pursed and puckered state it seemed to perpetually fall back to. “I guess the Institute really did perfect… you know, _you_. You’re no different than me.”

While he genuinely liked that response, he made himself come off as personally touched. “That means a lot.”

Charmer shrugged, gaze falling back to the stew. “Hungry?”

“Starving.”

“Good. You’ll need to be, since my cooking isn’t exactly worth any culinary awards.”

They ate in silence, questions fading back behind any lines that weren’t to be crossed on this evening, their eyes tired and bodies sore. Deacon kept her in the corner of his vision no matter what, like she was a wild animal that could lash out at any moment. He was normally so good at keeping his tension to himself, his worry, but he sensed she somehow knew. Every move she made was slow and purposeful, every look she gave him was shuttered.

His stomach squirmed. For the first time since he laid eyes on her, he wondered what the hell he’d gotten himself into. This was Father’s sister. A woman who had adapted to the cruelty of the Wasteland with unbelievable speed. A woman who he had seen single-handedly clear an outpost of raiders, the old HQ of synths… A woman sharp as the knife she kept sheathed over her combat vest, and confident as hell.

Maybe he shouldn’t have made a game of this, after all.

 

000

 

Charmer was exhausted. He could see the fatigue lining the cant to her head, in the weight laying heavy on her shoulders. Her fingers danced around the trigger of her 10 mm, restless and absent-minded, her eyes scanning the abandoned village without their usual attentiveness.

The pair had made it back to HQ the night before, only to be sent out on another mission this morning. Desdemona had mentioned some settlement in the far east that was supposedly stashing third-gen synths, stealing them away from the Institute in order to act as synthetic body-shields for their sorry, raider asses. It was sickening. She wanted Charmer and Deacon to check the veracity of the rumor, to bring those synths in if it were true.

The settlement was at least a three-day’s walk away. They’d only been at it for some twelve hours, and Charmer was already so tired. Honestly, he worried. She hadn’t let Doc Carrington look at her the night before and left without a proper checkup this morning. Probably hadn’t slept much either.

“We should call it a night,” Deacon suggested, glancing about for a proper shelter for the evening. There was an old diner up a ways, near the coast; a boardwalk to their left, protruding over the water, hosting several shops; and a row of houses set behind that, edging towards what once had been a forest, some two centuries ago. None particularly stuck out to him as more strategically advantageous, but the diner, at least, looked clear.

Charmer frowned at him, the dark half-moons under her eyes becoming more pronounced. “If we stop now, we’ll make bad time.”

“Yeah, and if we keep going, you’ll keel over from exhaustion,” he pointed out, a little harsher than he intended. “You might be rather… petite… but you’re overestimating my masculine abilities if you think I can haul your ass _and_ your gear somewhere safe, when that happens. And I know how you are about your gear.”

The frown deepened. “Why don’t you worry about yourself, and I’ll worry about me.” She continued on, leaving him behind, trekking forward despite her lack of speed and general weariness.

Goddamn, this was a stubborn woman. Fine. He’d just have to play his other card. “Listen,” he told her, forcing her to a stop again. “I’m like twice your age, okay? Maybe _I_ need a rest for a bit?”

Ugh, he hated playing the ‘twice your age’ card. When had he gotten old enough for that, anyway? While it was half-true – she was technically older than any human still living in the Commonwealth – it didn’t mean he needed any favors. Especially not when his body was still wired and ready to move. But she needed to stop. Before she got them killed.

Charmer looked at him over her shoulder from underneath thick eyelashes, likely judging the truth in his words. But something about the look she was giving him sent shockwaves through his belly. Fuck. When he first saw her, he’d thought she was pretty… but now –

Clenching his jaw, he looked away from her.

“Thought you were a synth,” she finally said, face unreadable. She watched him carefully, lips falling into that puckered look.

Shit. He knew she probably doubted him when he said it, but honestly, he wanted to keep her guessing. That was the game. That was just what he did. “You think I’m not? What, synths can’t get tired?”

Those eyes, green and bright, seemed to know more than she was letting on. She gave him another once over, gaze racking over his body slowly and carefully, worsening his thoughts from before. Then she nodded.

“Fine,” Charmer said with a shrug. “Let’s clear out that diner. Has the best vantage on all four sides.”

He tried not to let that comment get under his skin. He’d been thinking the same thing, not long ago. Yeah… she was definitely a little bit like him. Or a lot.

 

000

 

“You pick every safe you come across?” Deacon asked, amused, as he watched Charmer curse as yet another bobby-pin snapped in the tumblers of the floor safe she was currently bent over. The view was priceless. Woman had an ass like a goddess, that much was true. Not that he wanted to know that. And now, he couldn’t un-know it.

She spoke around the bobby-pin in her mouth. “Never know what you’ll find.” Then she cursed again, snapping another. “What the fuck. How hard can this be? It’s got, like, four tumblers in there.”

Deacon chuckled, resting his elbows on the countertop beside her. He watched her fingers work, edge carefully along the tumblers, slow and precise, thinking about how small they were, how soft and probably nice they would– _Click_. God, that saved him from a troublesome thought. 

“Hell yes,” she muttered, tucking her bobby pins away. He watched as she yanked open the safe door and hardly contained his laughter at the look that blossomed on her face.

Put simply, Charmer looked ready to kill. “Are you kidding me?” She rifled around in the safe, extracting a Nuka-Cola Cherry and some Blamco Mac ‘n Cheese. “Some asshole really thought he needed to lock this shit up?”

Deacon laughed all the way over to the sleeping mat he’d rolled out, plopping down on it and rubbing at his eyes from under his sunglasses. God, he hadn’t laughed so hard in such a long time. “Was it worth breaking five bobby pins?”

Joining him, Charmer tossed him another Nuka-Cola, which he caught effortlessly, and began to work on lighting a fire in the cooking pit in the corner. “Whatever,” she muttered. “My five broken bobby-pins are gonna feed your ass some Mac n’ Cheese tonight. You’re _welcome_.” 

“You are a goddess,” he said grandiosely, infusing a little too much graciousness in his tone to be sincere. “Honestly. The best cuisine out here in the Wasteland? Definitely two-hundred-year-old Mac ‘n Cheese. I love the dust flavor. Honestly, thinking about it keeps me up at night. I _yearn_ for it.”

“You’re such an asshole.”

“Yeah,” Deacon agreed lightly. “But it’s charming.”

Charmer snorted. “Somehow, yeah.”

Deacon’s mouth clicked shut. He wasn’t expecting her to affirm that. And yeah, she could just be messing with him… but that was the fucking problem. She was _messing_ with him.

Noting the abrupt end to their conversation, Charmer glanced at him after she got the fire going, eyes curious but still shuttered. “You okay?”

“Yeah,” he said, keeping the stiffness from his tone. “Why?”

She shrugged, pouring the contents of the Mac ‘n Cheese box into a clean pot. Settling it over the fire, she made her way towards him. Her own sleeping mat was adjacent to his. She laid down and gave him a curious look. “You usually like to keep the silences filled,” she pointed out, not unkindly. “You’ve been quiet lately.”

“What can I say?” Deacon splayed his arms out, like everything was a joke to him. “I’m a man of variety.” 

Charmer at least cracked a smile at that. Those green eyes probed him again, darker this time, searching his sunglass-laden face. “I know you aren’t a synth.”

He tried to hide the tension lining his muscles. Why was he so bothered? He knew she’d figure it out, eventually. He just didn’t think it’d come so quickly. “I know you know,” he managed to say somewhat cheerily, as if this had actually been the case. Inside, he squirmed.

Charmer smirked at him. As if she knew she was making him uncomfortable. “Normally I can’t stand people who play games.” She shrugged and stood again, returning to the cooking food, her back to him. “But you’re all right.”

 

000

 

“Something wrong, boss?” Deacon asked, taking in the curl to Charmer’s lips, the squinted eyes perusing the desolate landscape laid before them. They were nearly at the settlement – probably an hour, two hours away tops – but needed to cross a long-dead field first to make it towards the bridge about half a mile away. Charmer had drawn up short as soon as the pair stood at its edge.

“What’s that thing you always say about snipers?”

He smirked and glanced around. “That I’d be… there,” he pointed towards an old military truck, some hundred meters away, “or there,” then towards a house that lay at the edge of the field, “or maybe… there.” A rocky outcropping, elevated. Yeah, those were good spots. He had an eye for that sort of thing.

Charmer shot him a frown. “Thanks, Deacon, that’s really reassuring.”

“I aim to please, m’lady.”

Charmer _hmm_ ed. “I don’t feel spectacular about walking out in the open so much.” She turned those critical eyes on him. “And I imagine you don’t either.”

He grinned at her. “What, don’t want to play a game of duck and cover? Honestly, it’s fun. Kinda like Russian roulette. We can see who gets shot first. Last man standing wins… a drink at the Third Rail.”

Clearly she didn’t know what the Third Rail was, if the confusion that sparkled in her eyes was any indication. “How ‘bout I just owe you one, anyway? We can forgo one of us dealing with all that messy bodily harm.”

He pretended to pout. “Now that’s less fun.”

Rolling her eyes, Charmer glanced back at the proverbial mine field ahead of them. “Let’s go around. We’ll lose a couple hours, but better that than you having to drag my sniped ass somewhere for the night.”

“What makes you think you’d be the one to get shot?”

A tiny smile curled on her lips. Charmer’s eyes, surprisingly, shone with mirth. “’Cause I look a hell of a lot scarier than you do.” Then she turned about and began walking the field’s perimeter, towards an outcropping of houses to the south, leaving him to catch up.

He jogged after her a bit, frowning when he felt pain in his knees. Ugh. All that aging crap was really getting to him. Once they were walking side-by-side again – Charmer’s eyes on the field and the surrounding houses, his eyes sliding over to her every now and again – he cleared his throat.

“I’ve been meaning to ask you something,” he said, infusing his tone with as much uncertainty as possible. It wasn’t that hard. He _was_ fairly uncertain about it.

Charmer took her eyes off the foreboding landscape long enough to glance at him curiously. “Yeah?”

“Where’d you learn to fight?” The twitch in her hand at his question didn’t go unnoticed. Neither did her clenched jaw or her purposefully unreadable expression. He pushed on anyway, like he hadn’t detected anything. Like he was just making conversation. “You’re damn good with a gun. But your hand-to-hand… I don’t think I’ve ever seen anyone fight the way you do.”

She wasn’t meeting his gaze, and he wanted to scoff at her. For usually being so good at hiding her emotions, her play, she was doing a shit job right now. Some paranoia in the back of his mind wondered if she was doing that on purpose, just as he made himself sound shy about asking her. But why? Lying was his thing. Charmer was always just… purposefully vague.

“Does it matter?” she finally asked, a weak way to try to drop the subject. But there was something present in her that wasn’t there moments before. Something that looked a lot like fear and sadness.

Guilt stabbed at his heart, cold and unwanted. His personal mission was to get to know Charmer as best as he could, and that included how the hell she could tear through a mob of raiders and supermutants like they were nothing. But clearly the topic pained her in some way. Dug up old memories she wanted to keep buried.

“Guess not,” he said, toying with the sniper resting on his shoulder.

Several minutes passed in tense silence. They were nearly to the outcropping of houses, which Charmer would likely insist on clearing just to be on the safe side, when the woman beside him spoke again.

“I was military,” she said, staring at her boots, at the windows of the houses – anywhere but at him. “Before the… bombs.”

The frown on her lips tugged at his heartstrings, or what was left of them. Honestly, he’d thought they’d died out of him a long time ago. He cleared his throat again. “We don’t have to talk about it.” And he meant it. He didn’t want to push her back into memories that hurt. As stupid as that was.

“I know,” Charmer said, clearly trying to keep her tone light. “It just… seems like someone should know. Someone living, anyway.”

That broke him. Eyeing her from his peripherals, where she wasn’t cast in shades of black and blue from his sunglasses, Deacon felt like he finally understood something about Charmer other than what he already knew: that she was Father’s sister, a former lawyer, a 200 something relic who probably looked around at the remnants of Boston and saw two images – what was and what had been. He finally understood that she was just human, too. Like him. And she was hiding a lot more under that tough skin of hers than she let on.

Charmer… she was damaged.

They had more in common than he realized.

 

000

 

The pair crouched behind the crumbling wall of an old building, a hundred feet away from the raider settlement below them. Charmer had her sniper out, marking targets and counting heads, using what he was beginning to identity as her ‘military’ tone. They were sorely outnumbered, as they had expected, but she didn’t seem terribly bothered at that prospect. In fact, she seemed a little excited.

These poor bastards didn’t know what was about to hit ‘em. If they weren’t walking pieces of shit, using synths as their own personal body shields, he might’ve actually felt bad for them. Might’ve.

“So, we gonna talk about how exactly we’re supposed to kill them, if they use the people we’re trying to save as human shields?” he asked a bit offhandedly, though the thought made him nervous. There were twenty raiders – enough that, if they took a few out, the rest would be alerted and would run for the synths. That was trouble.

Charmer clucked her tongue silently, deep in thought. “We could wait until dark. Fix those suppressors on our rifles, take them out a few at a time. Start with the guards, then work our way inside.” She smirked at him, eyes lighter than usual. “You like the sneaky way, don’t you?”

“I do,” he allowed. “You’re a woman after my own heart.”

That statement hit him hard – _fuck_ , he shouldn’t have said that. In the corner of his eye, Charmer gave him a strange look. A few seconds beat away in silence, before Charmer – whatever gods there may be, bless her – tried to lighten the air. “You have a heart?” the smirk only widened. “Honestly, who would’ve thought?”

He nearly breathed a sigh of relief. Didn’t need things getting weird between them – especially because of him. Deacon wasn’t an emotional kind of guy. At least, that’s what he told himself. God, he needed a drink. Or five.

Returning her focus to the raider encampment, Charmer nodded her head, as if reaffirming something to herself. “So we’ll wait until dark. Let’s head back to that old trailer we passed, get some rest. We move at sundown.”

 

000

 

Sundown, unfortunately, was four hours away. They had four hours to kill, stuck in each other’s presence, silent and shivering cold. Now that they weren’t moving, the fading bite of winter sunk into their bones, chilling them just enough to be uncomfortable, just enough that Charmer had slid closer to him in the trailer and rested her shoulder against his.

He couldn’t stop thinking about it. Like it was burning him, he could feel her heat. Goddamn. He needed to get a grip on himself. Crushing on the new recruit – especially considering that new recruit was Father’s _sister_ – was a beyond stupid idea.

Right?

He felt her shiver again, her skin trembling next to his, her teeth quietly clacking together. Of course, she was colder than him – smaller, wearing less layers. Deacon sighed. He couldn’t just be an asshole and let her spend the next four hours this way. Well, he could… but Deacon didn’t much like being an asshole.

“You want my jacket?” he asked, breaking the silence that had descended on them some forty minutes ago.

Charmer gave him a disparaged look. “No,” she said firmly, not unkind. “I was stationed in Anchorage. I’m used to the cold.”

“Doesn’t look like that to me,” he pointed out, rolling his eyes. The stubbornness of this woman! God, it would get her killed some day. Maybe both of them.

“I’m fine,” she said, looking back outside, her eyelids growing heavy. She must be exhausted. Hadn’t slept much the past three days. Used the excuse that she was taking watch for them, but they’d cleared all the neighborhoods they’d stayed in. Something else was keeping her up.

Forgoing the little voice in his head that occasionally warned him not to do stupid things, Deacon slowly – carefully – wrapped an arm over her shoulder. Charmer’s head immediately snapped towards him, eyes wide, full lips parted.

“Relax,” he said, putting his hands up to show her he meant no harm. “Figured you could use some sleep. In case you haven’t noticed, I’m the closest thing to a pillow you’re gonna get.”

Her sharp gaze softened and she bit her lip, clearly debating the value of sleeping versus staying alert and awake. “You’ll have nothing to do,” she finally said, the lamest excuse he’d ever heard. Nothing to do? _Doll, I’d have a beautiful woman resting in my arms_. What _else_ could he want to do?

He was so fucked.

Deacon swallowed thickly and cleared his throat. “I’m _built_ for doing nothing. Really. Half of espionage – creeping around, gathering intel. The other half? Doing absolutely nothing. For days on end, sometimes. One time, I did literally nothing for an entire week. A week! I really think my brain is better suited to be a vegetable.”

Charmer cracked a smile at him, her eyes bespeaking her appreciation for his lame attempt to put her at ease. Then she nodded, mind made up. Before he could pull her to his chest, like he originally planned on doing, Charmer scooted down a bit and sidled up to him. Her heat was immediate – he couldn’t ignore it, the press of her against him. It was consuming, and it was such a bad idea – this whole thing.

She pressed her cheek into his chest, resting her hand beside it, on him. The other wrapped around his waist and held him close. She smelled like gunpowder, like sharp metal, and he found himself relaxing into her touch after a few moments. He placed a hand on her hip, gentle and careful not to startle her, and watched as she fell asleep.

The words _you can’t trust anyone, you can’t trust anyone, youcan’ttrustanyone_ spun round and round through his head.

 

000

 

Charmer murmured in her sleep. It wouldn’t have been all that startling, if it had all been in English. But it wasn’t. He heard a few other languages – Chinese the most frequent, something Slavic and deep next – and stared down at her in wonder. He counted four. Four other languages. Hell, Deacon could barely speak one. When did someone have the time to learn four different languages?

Her murmurs sometimes grew panicked, turning into cries briefly before subsiding again. He knew Charmer was plagued with nightmares – had been woken up by a few, since they started traveling together. But he’d only ever seen her at the cusp of them, since she always woke up afterwards and grew quiet once more. This… This was different. There was pain and heartbreak on her face. Fear.

No matter how good of a liar someone was, this was when they were most vulnerable. This fear was real.

He debated the merits of waking her up for an hour straight, talking himself into it then out of it again. Finally, she’d pressed herself more fully against him – God, he could feel her breasts – and quieted down. The worst of it passed, and the subsequent three hours went substantially better than the first.

Every shift she made, every time she nuzzled his chest with her cheek, affected him deeply. His body was on fire, alight, reacting to every little movement. Deacon simultaneously hated it and loved it. It had been so long, since… 

Ugh. He didn’t want to think of Barbara. Tried his best to never think about her. And now he was. Barbara… and Charmer.

Since when had he lost his carefully crafted control?

You can’t trust anyone. _Anyone_.

Suddenly, she stiffened in his arms. Awake. He watched as she peeled her eyes open immediately, first checking their surroundings, then looking up at him. She seemed smaller than usual. Fragile.

“Deacon?”

“Yeah, do - boss?” he said, correcting himself before he called her what he did in his head. He had a feeling she wouldn’t take kindly to being called ‘doll’.

“The sun’s down,” she noted quietly, nodding her head towards the darkened sky.

Shit. He hadn’t even noticed. That’s how fucked he was. “Figured you could use the sleep,” he finally said. “’Sides, we have the whole night to get this done, right? That’s like all the time in the world.”

Charmer accepted his lame excuse, but he couldn’t tell if she bought it or not. She pulled herself from his body – he felt the absence of her body heat as if someone had blasted him with the very heart of winter – and stretched. Her feline body curved deliciously – was she doing this on purpose? – and he watched with rapt attention.

Deacon needed a good, hard slap to the face. Yeah. That’s what he needed. He was doing a shit job of remaining unaffected. Normally he was the first person to follow his own advice.

Charmer yawned and ran a hand through her hair, settling down the unruly locks. Then she stood, not wasting another moment. Weapon in hand, others slung across her back, she extended a hand down towards him. “Ready?”

He stared at her hand, so small but somehow, not delicate. His engulfed hers when he accepted it.

You can’t trust anyone. 

“Ready as ever, boss.”

 

000

 

He watched Charmer duck behind some cover, just barely dodging the bullets from the last raider they needed to kill. The man was a fucking beast – taller than Deacon by at least a foot, wider by two. All muscle. The minigun in his hands looked miniscule compared to the rest of him. Deacon was starting to doubt that they’d be able to take him down without causing any injury to the synths, who were also hiding from the onslaught of bullets.

He ushered as many as he could to safety, told them to wait for him, but there were a few stragglers left inside the encampment. Charmer was at one’s side, whispering reassurances to it, from what he could tell. Then she darted up, rifle hugged close to her shoulder, and fired off a few rounds, nicking the raider in the arm.

The raider cried out in anger. He charged towards Charmer and the synth, forcing Deacon’s belly to drop to his toes. _Fuck_. He fired on the raider himself, but it was useless. All his bullets weren’t piercing the man’s armor.

Looked like he needed to get up close and personal. The thought didn’t sit well with him, but he didn’t really have time to think it through. He just moved. The thought of Charmer dying… It galvanized him.

You can’t trust anyone, but you can’t let them die, either.

“Hey asshole!” he shouted, charging towards the raider, firing bullets with every step.

Well, that got the beast’s attention. The raider, completely forgetting Charmer, turned to face Deacon. There was a sick, twisted smile on the man’s face, like he knew Deacon was walking right into his own death. _Fuck_.

Before the raider could raise his minigun, a hand shot out, gripping the raider’s jaw, shoving his head up. Deacon watched as Zora ran a hacksaw through the man’s neck – _fuck_ , he would never forget that sight – spilling his blood down onto his armor, making the man choke on it.

The raider dropped to his knees, gasping for air, touching his neck blindly, before he faceplanted in the dirt.  Charmer stood behind him, eyes wild and armor caked in thick, hot blood.

She stared at Deacon, immobile, face flushed from the fight. “The hell were you trying to do?”

The sheepish look he gave her wasn’t fake. “Uh. Save you?”

Charmer just shook her head, like she couldn’t believe his stupidity. “Next time, maybe try for some more self-preservation, yeah? The running into battle kinda shit is my thing.”

 

000

 

It took three more days to transport all the synths – 12, in total – to Ticonderoga. High Rise was taken aback by the sheer number of them, by the haunted looks in their eyes, but he greeted each warmly and reassuringly. Deacon felt shitty thinking it, but he was glad to have them off his hands. Traveling with 12 synths? Out in the Commonwealth? It had been a nightmare. They couldn’t have painted a brighter target on their backs if they tried.

He watched as Charmer gave them some parting words, some encouragement and reassurance. The smile she gave the newly freed synths was blinding – white, perfect rows of teeth, flashing brightly at her audience. He envied them, if only for a second. She hadn’t ever smiled at him the same.

When she was finished, she approached him, a small smile still tugging at her lips.

“How are they?” he asked, nodding at the synths being led off to different rooms.

Charmer’s smile faded, if only a little. “They’re scared. But I think they’ll be okay. They seem… hopeful.”

“That’s good.”

“It is,” she agreed. Then she placed a hand on his shoulder and grinned up at him – not the way she had at the synths, but tiredly. “I owe you a drink, don’t I?”

He grinned back. “That you do.”

 

000

 

Goodneighbor had been a surprise, to say the least, for Charmer. Upon walking in, she witnessed the mayor stick a knife in someone’s gut for trying to sell her protection. Not the warmest of welcomes, but hey. To each his own.

Deacon could tell she was both fascinated by Goodneighbor and disturbed.  Couldn’t much blame her for that either, considering the sheer number of drugs laying around, the prostitution and crime. It was definitely a unique gem of the Commonwealth – not the cleanest, not the nicest, but the most interesting.

By the light in her eye, she fucking loved the Third Rail. The hypnotic voice of Magnolia, the dim lights and strange people – Charmer seemed to be in her natural environment. He could picture it – her all dolled up before the war, going out to some late-night jazz club, drinking in the sights.

She bought him a drink, as promised, and then two more. Deacon hadn’t indulged in a long time – it was hard to really let loose in the Commonwealth, especially when working for the Railroad – but it was easier when he knew someone had his back. He laughed at all Charmer’s poorly made jokes, watched her swing around the dancefloor hypnotically, charm the crowd around her. That was Charmer. A sight to see, and everyone wanted a ticket.

When Hancock approached and asked her for a dance, Deacon felt… wrong. The band changed the tune to a slow one, seemingly at the request of the Mayor himself, if his salacious grin was any indication. It was masochistic, but Deacon watched their every move. The way Hancock rested his hands on Charmer’s hips, the way he pulled her up against his chest, the way they laughed. The man was fucking forward as hell – did he know nothing about subtlety? He twirled Charmer and caught her again, somehow bringing her closer than before.

He hadn’t realized he was gripping his drink so hard until Magnolia approached him. “Don’t think I’ve ever seen you so… off your game before,” she noted in her husky tone, nodding at Charlie for a drink.

Deacon sucked in a breath and pulled his gaze away from Charmer and the Mayor. He flashed Magnolia an easy smile. “Who, me? Nah. I’m good.”

The singer raised a perfect brow. “If you were talking to anyone else, maybe they’d believe you.” She turned, smirking at the pair dancing to the band she had left playing. “I don’t think I’ve ever heard Hancock laugh so much. That girl of yours – she’s something.”

 _That girl of yours_. He swallowed. “She’s not mine.”

Magnolia fixed him with another knowing look, accepting her water from Charlie. “Not if you let her get away from you, that’s for sure.” She smiled again, softer than before, and approached the stage. Grabbing the mic, she looked right at Deacon as she said in her low, seductive tone, “And for our beautiful pair on the dancefloor tonight… We’ll take things a little slower.”

He should’ve gotten up, left. Right then and there. But maybe this would help – seeing her with someone else. Maybe he could finally get her out of his head. It was ridiculous that she was even stuck there to begin with. You can’t trust anyone, and you definitely can’t fall in love.

 

000

 

He should have gone to the hotel when he had the chance. Watching Charmer leave the bar on Hancock’s arm… that didn’t make things better for him. It was worse. Way worse. He nearly broke his glass, he was so tense.

Downing his drink, he stood up, tipsy and unhappy. He looked around and considered his options. Leaving Charmer with Hancock didn’t seem right. He could follow them, make sure the ghoul treated her well… but no. That was fucked up in its own way. And he likely wouldn’t survive her wrath if she ever figured it out.

Instead, he unsteadily made his way over to the hotel Redford, dropped some caps on the counter for a room, and climbed up the rickety staircase. His buzz was wearing off, leaving him feeling hollow. Angry. Deacon didn’t do angry very well. Always made some stupid, rash decisions, always put himself in a worse situation.

He couldn’t do that tonight. Tonight, he wouldn’t leave this room. Just to be on the safe side.

Yanking his boots off and tossing his wig on the bed, Deacon reclined on the mattress. The ceiling, which had probably been white once, was cracked and yellowing.

An hour passed with him staring at the cracks above him. He hadn’t necessarily been lying when he told Charmer he could do absolutely nothing. It had been a skill he picked up early on, when doing recon. There was a whole lotta sitting around, a whole lotta waiting. He’d gotten good at it.

It was two in the morning when Charmer stumbled into the room. Deacon sat up, alert, when he heard the sound of a key jamb into place, the rustling of the doorknob. He was, at once, relieved and angry to see her. But his anger was completely unjustified, so he shoved it away to deal with later.

He crossed the room quickly when he watched Charmer, unbalanced, try to walk inside. How she even made it up three flights of stairs in her state was beyond him. Hancock hadn’t even had the decency to walk her back? Fucking cocksucker.

Deacon put a hand around her waist, but she tensed away from him. “It’s me,” he said, pulling her into the room and shutting the door behind her. As soon as she realized who he was, she sank into him, clutching his shoulders for support.

“The fuck’s wrong with you?” Deacon asked, his tone coming out harsher than he intended. He cleared his throat. “Come on, you need to sit.” Leading her to the bed across from his, he forced her to sit. He grabbed some snacks and purified water from his bag to hand off to her.

When she accepted them, she giggled. But it wasn’t the giggle of a drunk person.

Deacon froze. He glared down at the top of her pretty head, jaw clenched. “Are you high right now?”

Another giggle. Fuck, he was going to _kill_ Hancock. Fucking kill him. Charmer had confided in him not long ago that she’d never done drugs before. Ever. And now one night with the Mayor of Goodneighbor? He grabbed his wig, adjusted it on his head, and stalked to the door.

 Charmer stopped giggling, finally sensing he was upset. She stood, swaying on her feet. “’Where’re you goin’?” she slurred, half out of her mind.

Deacon turned back and made her sit again. “I’m going to fucking kill Hancock for giving you drugs.” He made to leave again, but Charmer grabbed his arm.

“It’s not his fault,” she said, carefully spacing out her words in an effort to sound soberer. “He didn’t make me do anything.”

“And yet you’re high.” The flatness of Deacon’s tone seemed to wake her up a bit. She frowned up at him like a scolded child.

“I… he offered, and I’d never done it before,” she said, sounding small. “He didn’t make me. I’m sorry.”

 _I’m sorry_. God, she sounded so… young. And she was. Younger than him by double, not counting the years she’d been on ice. Deacon swiped his wig off his head and threw it on his mattress, seething. He was absolutely pissed, but he couldn’t ascertain whether he was pissed at her or Hancock more.

Still holding on to his arm, Charmer tugged on it, asking without words for him to sit. He did, stiffly. Every bone in his body wanted to charge out of the room and give Hancock a piece of his mind and a warning to stay the fuck away from Charmer.

“I’m sorry,” Charmer said again, her hand moving from his forearm to his palm. She twirled her fingers against his rough skin, a deep frown marring her lips. “It won’t happen again. Promise.”

 _So young_ , he couldn’t stop thinking. She was so young.

“You’d better not,” he said, fixing her a look that bespoke his seriousness. “Or I’ll kill him. I mean it.”

“I believe you.” She sounded soberer by the second. Retracting her hand from his, she laid down on her bed. “And I keep my promises.”

He stood. There needed to be distance between them, something to separate him from his emotions. He flopped back down onto his bed and rolled onto his side. Charmer’s eyes were already closed.

Deacon had never made a promise he kept. Why should she?

 

000

 

“I feel… like shit,” Charmer declared emphatically, pulling the collar of her shirt up to cover her eyes. “My brain has shriveled up inside my head. I think it’s dying.”

Deacon stared at her, mouth a flat line, completely unamused.  Honestly, he’d been in a pissy mood all night. Thoughts of her time with Hancock, about what kind of drug he might’ve handed her or what else they’d gotten up to, kept him from sleeping. “That’s what happens when you do drugs,” he said pointedly. “What, you thought you’d wake up and it’d be all rainbows and unicorns?”

Uncovering one eye, Charmer glared at him. “Your righteousness is unbearable.”

“Good. It should be. Maybe I can be unbearable enough to keep you from doing that shit again.”

Charmer let out a long sigh. “I already promised I wouldn’t. You can stop throwing it in my face.”

He glanced away from her, towards the window. Weak sunlight filtered in, dancing on the worn carpet beneath his boots. In her condition, they likely weren’t traveling anywhere today. Adjusting the wig on his head, Deacon sighed. “I’m gonna rent the room for another night. You need rest.”

“Take my caps,” Charmer offered. “And maybe… bring some food?”

He tried hard not to give her another glare. “Sure thing, boss.”

Stepping out of the room, he closed the door softly behind him, mindful of Charmer’s raging headache. He paused in the hallway a moment and just stared down at his boots. He was so fucked. _They_ were fucked. How that woman could even stand the ghoul’s presence, let alone _do drugs_ with him… that was well fucking beyond Deacon’s ability to comprehend.

The worst part of it all? He couldn’t even lie to himself about it. He knew he was jealous. There wasn’t another emotion he could cling to, claim to feel instead of that nasty green monster raging inside of him. No, he was just jealous. Plain and simple.

He reached the lobby and made small talk with the hotel clerk, Clara, for a moment. The old woman was decent. Didn’t approve of Fred’s drug abuse, didn’t deal with Maloney’s shit. He liked her. After handing over some more caps for the room again, Deacon ducked out of the hotel in search of food.

 He went to Daisy first. Figured Charmer could use a noodle cup, some sugar bombs, maybe a Nuka-Cola. After purchasing what he needed, he made to turn around and head back to the hotel. Instead, he nearly ran into the very man he wanted to murder.

“Deacon!” Hancock greeted amiably, a sharp grin on the ghoul’s coarse face. “I heard you were in town. Tell me, how’s our little amateur druggie doing this morning?”

Deacon could only stare at the Mayor for several moments, his breath coming in short and quick. The box of sugar bombs crunched under the pressure of his grip. Hancock seemed to sense something was off, despite not being able to see Deacon’s eyes. The ghoul gave him a sideways look. The grin that had been on his chapped, rough lips not a moment ago disappeared.

“There a problem?” Hancock asked, tone growing wary. He glanced at Daisy, who stood tense behind Deacon, before turning his near-black eyes back to the man in question. “Listen, if this is about Nora – “

 _Nora_. That was her name. She’d told Hancock her name. It wasn’t an alias – Deacon knew from the research he’d done on her. Nora was her real name and she graced it to the likes of the druggie Mayor of Goodneighbor.

In one swift motion, Deacon stiffly set his purchases on Daisy’s counter, and swung around to punch Hancock in the face. The cartilage of the ghoul’s nose was long gone, leaving Deacon’s fist to bash into bone. He could feel his knuckles tear open, but he didn’t care. Hancock had fallen on his ass and that was all that mattered.

“Holy hell, kid,” Hancock grunted, holding a hand up to his face. “The fuck was that for?”

A crowd had gathered around them – the Neighborhood watch. The air was electric, and Deacon knew multiple guns were pointed at him right now. But he just didn’t care.

Hancock shoved to his feet. Much to Deacon’s disappointment, he didn’t seem any worse for wear. The ghoul gestured for his men to stand down, and every gun that had been pointed at Deacon now pointed at the ground. Black eyes regarded the Railroad agent sharply.

Suddenly, Deacon felt red-hot. A blush creeped up his neck, both angry and embarrassed. He’d lost control. He’d lost control so bad he just punched the fucking Mayor of Goodneighbor. A criminal in a town of criminals. The stupidest thing he’d ever done, for sure.

But he couldn’t just walk away. Not when all eyes were on him, not when he had to stay in this place overnight again. Fuck.

He stepped up to Hancock, chest to chest. Quietly, so no one else could overhear them, he growled, “She doesn’t do drugs with you. Ever again. Got it?”

Hancock’s eyebrows – or what would have been his eyebrows – shot up. He was simultaneously impressed and irritated. “Fine, kid.” It seemed like he’d leave it at that, but just when Deacon was turning to grab what he’d bought for Charmer, Hancock spoke again. “But that’s between you and her. She makes her own decisions.”

Deacon plucked his purchases off the counter and shouldered past the ghoul, heading back towards the Redford. Fuck. He’d lost control. He was _losing_ control.

He needed to get a grip, and fast.

 

000

 

“Your hand’s bleeding,” Charmer pointed out when he returned to their hotel room. She lay on her side on the bed, looking exhausted and a little sick, but her green eyes were focused on him. “Something happen?”

Shit. Deacon glanced down at his fist – sure enough, the knuckles were torn wide open and blood ran down his wrist like a glove. Placing the food on the nightstand beside her, Deacon said nothing. He grabbed his pack from under the bed and dug around for a stimpack.

Charmer’s bed creaked behind him. He stiffened. She had stood, her legs a little shaky but otherwise holding her up just fine, and came to hover beside him. The blood on his hand was getting all over his pack, keeping him from getting a good hold on anything.

Charmer gently took the bag from him while he staunchly avoided making eye contact with her. A small, soft hand came up to rest on his shoulder. “Sit down,” she ordered quietly.

He hesitated a moment, but ultimately complied. It was too much – all of this. Deacon desperately wanted to run away, just leave the room and never come back. He wasn’t built for this. Not anymore. That much was proven by his inability to properly deal with his emotions. He couldn’t pine after another Railroad agent. And he sure as hell couldn’t go around knocking people on their asses every time they got close to said Railroad agent.

Fuck.

Though she wasn’t in prime condition herself, Charmer crouched down in front of him and took his hand in hers. He yanked it away from her immediately, as if she’d stung him, but instantly regretted it. Her green eyes flashed with hurt. That pucker to her lips was replaced with a frown. This was all… wrong.

_Can’ttrustanyonecan’ttrustanyone…_

“Deacon,” she said, and she sounded so much gentler than normal. Oddly calm and composed, careful – like she was talking to a wild animal. Like he was on the ledge of something and about to jump off. “Are you okay?”

He sucked in a quick breath. “I’m fine, boss.” His voice came out hoarse and scratchy. His gaze dropped down to his lap again, where he cradled his bleeding hand. “You know me,” he continued, trying for a cheerier tone. “Clumsier than a feral on a tightrope.”

Charmer pressed her lips together so tightly, they became white. “I do know you. You’re not clumsy at all, but you are a liar. Wanna try telling me something closer to the truth?”

He looked away, but managed a thin smile. “Got in a fight with a supermutant. Fist fight. Wasn’t my wisest idea, but the asshole had it coming. Literally stole candy from a baby – can you believe it?” There – that was more like him. That sounded better.

Charmer grabbed his chin and forced him to look at her. “See, part of that seems true. This is definitely from clocking someone in the face. But it wasn’t a supermutant, was it?”

“You caught me,” he said, trying hard not to lean into her touch. “It was a deathclaw. Bastard took me by surprise. I read in an old book that you punch a shark in the nose to stun it – guess it works on everything, huh?”

For once, Charmer was not patient with him. She growled and uncurled from her crouch, standing to her full height. She raked a hand through her hair and gazed sightlessly out the window, breathing in and out slowly, controlled. Her eyes closed for a moment, and he almost felt bad for lying to her, but then she blinked them open and seemed… calm.

Turning to him again, Charmer grabbed his hand, grip tight so he couldn’t shift away but light enough not to hurt him. “Fine,” she said, tone cool and detached. “At least let me bandage this up. You can stimpack yourself, but you’ll need something to cover it from an infection while it stitches itself back up.”

“Sure, boss. Whatever you say.” He pretended he didn’t notice the tension in her shoulders, the way she bit her lip in order to maintain her air of coolness. He pretended he wasn’t angry anymore, or tired, or thinking about her hands on his body.

Deacon needed to pretend a lot of things.

 


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Deacon has to deal with his partner, the General of the Minutemen, and Charmer has to deal with some of her past.

They were leaving Goodneighbor this morning, but Deacon needed to do something first. Something he _really_ didn’t want to do. He needed to suck up his pride – which was such a fucking beast, in all reality – take the walk of shame over to the State House and apologize to that low-life ghoul who pumped Charmer full of enough drugs to lay her on her ass for a full day.

First, he needed to fix his attitude about the whole ordeal. Charmer wasn’t his. She was his partner, yeah, but that was where the line ended. He had no claim over her, no justifiable reason to be pissed at her personal choices whatever they may be. Sure, what Hancock did was a little fucked up – opening the gate for someone like Charmer to become a drug addict – but would she _really_ get addicted to that shit?

Deacon didn’t know. And he wasn’t supposed to make it his problem. He wasn’t.

When he had finally collected himself on the matter, he muttered some lame excuse to Charmer about needing to get some supplies and left the Redford, intent to get the whole ordeal over with.

Inside the State House, he found Hancock on the second floor, his second-in-command hovering at his elbow. Fahrenheit. Deacon had never liked the woman. Sure, Charmer was a little rough around the edges, but Fahrenheit? A man could get all sorts of fucked up from that woman.

Hancock’s black eyes zeroed in on Deacon immediately, surprise and calculation swarming within them. He barked at Fahrenheit to leave the room and snapped at her again when she didn’t close the doors.

Deacon waited, patient as ever. He wasn’t in a rush to further make an ass of himself.

“Sit down,” Hancock offered, gesturing towards a patchy looking couch. Deacon did as instructed, his eyes meeting the ghoul’s across from him. “How’s your hand?” Hancock asked conversationally. “Me – I’ve got a nasty bruise you can’t even see. I can sure as hell feel it, though.”

Deacon flashed a repentant smile. “Hasn’t messed with your dashing looks any, I see. Lucky bastard. You made of steel?”

A smirk curled on Hancock’s lips. “Something like that. And hey – unspoken apology accepted. I get it. I was walking all over another man’s territory.”

Behind his sunglasses, Deacon hid a cringe. In a light tone, he corrected the man. “Nah, not mine. Just need her in top shape, y’know? We have some things we need to look after.”

The skepticism on Hancock’s face was not hidden. “Sure thing. I get it.” His gaze briefly flickered down to a jet inhaler laying on the coffee table between them. “You and me, Deacon, we’ve known each other a long time. We’re good. No worries.”

Deacon refrained from narrowing his eyes. Hancock was being _too_ polite about this. Especially considering the man was known for killing someone for less. “Yeah? Sure about that?”

“I’m sure.” The ghoul smiled. “Long as you remember you owe me one, yeah?”

There it was. The strings attached. That was the ghoul he knew, the conniving, greedy bastard. Honestly, he couldn’t even find it in himself to mind. Hancock wanted a favor from him someday? Fine.

“Sounds like a deal,” Deacon said, his irreverent tone coming back to him easily. That was more like it. That was _him_.

“Good,” Hancock said. “Now get out of my city before I change my mind. That girl of yours – she was damn good company.” He winked salaciously, making Deacon’s belly squirm, but before thoughts of Hancock and Charmer could bombard him and throw him off balance again, he shoved it away.

               

000

 

“Normally I wouldn’t ask someone to lie for me,” Charmer said, breaking the silence as the pair headed back to HQ, “but I have a feeling you wouldn’t mind.”

Deacon grinned. “Ooh, what are we lying about?” He rubbed his hands together like an excited kid. “Don’t tell me – your mysterious past? We could say you’re a time traveler, come to warn us about the future. A future filled with slimy, miniature unicorns, risen from Hell, thirsting for human blood.” He paused. “Nah, you’re right, too dramatic. How ‘bout this – you’re an angel. A literal angel. Angel of Death and all that jazz. And we tell Des you have a sacred mission to liberate all radroaches from eternal damnation from here to the west coast. I think she’d buy it, if you tried hard enough.”

Charmer threw him a half-amused smirk, but her eyes weren’t in it. “Uh, I was just gonna suggest we don’t tell Des about the other night.” Her tone grew quieter, as if she didn’t want to even broach the topic with him for fear of what he might say, but Deacon ignored the nausea roiling in his stomach and nodded, cheerful as ever.

“Sure thing, boss,” he shrugged. “I don’t even know whatcha mean. You talking about those raiders who set on us the other night, kept us on the road a bit longer? ‘Course,” he answered his own question. “That’s whatcha mean.”

Charmer gave him an appreciative smile, but something about it was shy. She’d grown shy around him now, and it was hard to ignore. He’d bet his right arm that it was not only because he’d seen her do something she swore she wouldn’t do – drugs – but also because he hadn’t fessed up to why his hand was still bandaged this afternoon. He had outright lied to her, hadn’t even offered up a good lie, and it bothered her.

Or maybe she knew. Maybe she’d seen Hancock before they’d left, too, and she knew what had happened.

Honestly, he wasn’t sure which was worse.

 

000

 

The next day, he woke up in HQ and Charmer was gone. Drummer Boy told him that she took off in the middle of the night, rushed but quiet. Something about a call from the Minutemen, a problem in a settlement. Preston Garvey himself had sent out a call for her over the Minutemen’s own radio, beseeching the help of their grand and noble General. The fucking boy scout, righteous asshole.

He hung around HQ for the day, a black cloud hovering over him, making his comments sharp and his silences tense. Glory approached him twice, first asking what he’d shoved up his ass to make him so moody, then to see if he wanted to go on a supply run with her. He had suggested Drummer Boy go instead – give the pair some time alone. Drummer Boy had had a crush on Glory since he’d joined up with the Railroad. It was only fair.

As if playing matchmaker wasn’t disgusting enough, Deacon found himself brooding. He refused to consider the source of his discontent – she was gone for now, and that was a blessing in some way because now he could go back to normal. He needed to be Deacon, top Railroad agent, best liar in the Commonwealth. Deacon, the fraud. Deacon, the guarded.

He _was_ a fraud. He was guarded. But honestly, he needed that. Without it… he became what Charmer brought out of him. Soft. Vulnerable.

Deacon couldn’t afford the luxury of being soft. Not again. Not when he’d already failed so many people.

Two more days passed and there was still no word from Charmer. Deacon was almost relieved, except he at least dimly recognized that he was also worried. So relief wasn’t really the word.  Maybe… content? No. Worried, but not _too_ worried. Not yet. Three days wasn’t a long time. He just _was_. And if it seemed like he was waiting around for her… well, that was only because he had some paperwork that was long overdue. Des loved her paperwork.

On the fifth day of her absence, Des gave him an assignment. He had accepted it without issue – Deacon was accustomed to working alone over the years, so going back to being a one-man show wouldn’t be that hard.  Hell, it’d be refreshing.

Sometimes Deacon wasn’t sure where the lies ended and the truth began, or vice versa.

 

000

 

As it turned out, Des sent Deacon out to the Castle. Yeah. _The_ Castle. AKA, Minutemen Headquarters, aka current postal address of one very righteous and annoying Preston Garvey, aka the last place Deacon wanted to go. The Glowing Sea was favorable to this place, honestly. He’d rather suck up a few rads than someone’s righteous bullshit. And to make matters worse… he had to travel up through University Point. Had to pass by all the old areas he used to haunt. Had to avert his gaze when he came across a place that had almost been a home.

The mission was complicated. It was well known that the Minutemen didn’t fear the Institute, didn’t see Big Brother as the enemy. Preston Garvey himself had expressed doubt time and again that the Institute was anything to fear. Word had circulated through the ranks, and a consensus had formed: the Institute was not the enemy.

That left a sour taste in Deacon’s mouth and a gaping hole in Minuteman logic. If they didn’t think the Institute was the enemy… then who were they fighting against? Raiders were disorganized, fractured into opposing factions. They only posed a threat in great numbers. Supermutants? Generally only a problem when hungry and/or scouting out new territory. But the Institute? They were the eyes behind the one-way mirror, the invisible hands pushing and prodding and killing and taking. They were _everything_.

So his mission – which was to set up a supply line of sorts with the Minutemen in order to transport defected synths into new settlements – was essentially over before it even started. There was no way Garvey would support this. Why Des even wanted him to bother was beyond his ability to comprehend. Sure, Deacon was a fucking silvertongue, but he and Preston had history. Not the good kind of history either.

He had to take down a few Gen 1s and 2s along the way – what the hell they were doing so close to the Castle, he wasn’t sure, but it didn’t sit well with him. As soon as the crumbling edifice of a settlement was in view, Deacon felt his airways tighten. He’d never been to the place himself – had heard some sort of massive sea creature shacked up inside for the past couple years – but he had to admit, he was impressed. Turrets covered every possible angle of attack, even pointed out towards the sea, and there was some sort of old-school bombing-contraption set up, facing the remains of the city behind Deacon.

He had to give Charmer credit. A year ago, the Minutemen were almost obsolete. Now, they were well organized, well led, and _really_ well armed. Damn.

One of the watchers atop the Castle walls must’ve sent word down that Deacon had arrived. He was wearing a new face, so no one was likely to remember him, but Garvey would recognize the voice. Couldn’t ever change the voice. That, and there were the ever-present sunglasses.

The man himself emerged from between two crumbling walls, sweat gathering on his dark forehead. Although his very distinguishable and pretentious hat was missing, Garvey wore the rest of his Minuteman ensemble. Deacon refrained from curling his lips in contempt. Today, he had to play nice.

“Friend or foe?” Preston asked as he approached Deacon, his dark eyes sizing the newcomer up. Although he didn’t have his laser musket drawn, it was slung over his shoulder, ready to be used if necessary.

Deacon held up his hands. “Friend. Count that as old friend, actually. What, don’t recognize me, Garvey?”

A glare immediately formed in Preston’s eyes. “Deacon.” Now he _did_ size Deacon up, but honestly, the Railroad agent could have laughed. If it came down to it, the Minuteman didn’t have it in him to kill Deacon. Went against his code of honor. “Been a long time. Long enough for you to get a new look.”

“You got that right,” Deacon grinned. “You like it? I went for handsome, but not _too_ handsome. Couldn’t compete with you, anyway. You’ve got the bone structure.”

Just barely refraining from rolling his eyes, Preston asked, “What is it you want? I’m busy.”

“I can see that,” Deacon commented lightly. “Seems like you got your ranks back, _and_ the Castle? Honestly, I’m impressed.”

Preston grunted at that. “Nothing you say is honest. Just come out with it. Why are you here?”

Deacon gave the younger man an easy smile. “You and I need to talk, Garvey. Got somewhere private we can go?”

 

000

 

“I’ve told you before – I’m not getting involved in the Railroad,” Preston said flatly, his palm resting on the table between him and Deacon. “Ya’ll are nothing but trouble. Crying wolf all the time, pointing at monsters in the dark that aren’t even there.”

Deacon curled his fingers into a fist under the table. Garvey was stubborn as hell – in fact, it reminded him of a certain someone – but more than that, Garvey was _naïve_. “Look, I’m not asking you to believe that the Institute is a threat. All I’m asking is that you help out some people who desperately need it. That’s what you do anyway, right? What makes this any different?”

A long-suffering sigh came from Preston’s lips. He looked away from the Railroad agent, his mouth pressing into a flat line. “Because I don’t trust you. Or your people. You remember why?” Now, he looked Deacon straight in the eyes, his dark irises burning. “Or do I need to refresh your memory?”

And this was why the mission was impossible. “Nah, my memory’s good, thanks. Good enough to recall that what happened in the swampland… That was an accident. You don’t believe me, that’s fine, but for once I’m telling the truth.”

“You left me for dead,” Preston growled, leaning forward, his perfect white teeth barred. “And you’re gonna call that an accident?”

“Yeah,” Deacon said, tone light. “’Cause I thought you _were_ dead. Excuse me for not having a medical degree, been hard to fine the time for that, what with the world being fucked over. You weren’t breathing and I couldn’t find a pulse!”

“There were _three_ deathclaws, Deacon. Three.” Jesus, if looks could kill. “And you took my gun. Couldn’t even leave me with something to defend myself, huh?”

Deacon tossed his hands in the air. “I didn’t think a dead man needed to defend anything!”

As if sensing that was the perfect moment for someone to interrupt this little reunion, the door to the War Room burst open behind Deacon. He closed his eyes briefly and thanked whatever gods were looking out for him, but then Preston had to go and open his mouth and ruin the whole enterprise.

“General?” Preston stood, an anxious look on his face. “Everything okay?”

 _General_. Fuck. The gods hated him. Hated him so much, and wanted him to know it. Honestly, why did he even bother?  He ought to toss himself off the east side of the Castle and straight into the sea. Let some monster gobble him up.

As if to dig the knife in deeper, her low voice rang through the room, pretty as ever. “Everything’s fine. I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to… Deacon?”

Of course, she was the only person who could ever distinguish him when disguised. He let his posture relax and turned in his chair to face her, giving a little wave with his fingers. “Boss. Or is it General? Honestly, I can’t keep up.”

Ooh, maybe that came out harsher than he intended. Charmer’s eyes narrowed at his irreverent tone, then darted between him and Preston. Before she could open her mouth, however, Preston beat her to it.

“You two know each other?” By the sound of it, little ole Garvey boy was pretty upset about that. A little more upset than a lieutenant ought to be for his Commanding Officer…

Deacon clenched his jaw and glanced back towards Preston. Yeah, there it was, written all over the man’s face – his heart on his sleeve, like an absolute fool. Preston had a thing for his General. And given the way Charmer had been so quick to run off when Garvey called for her…

“We know each other,” Charmer nodded at Preston, tone curling with suspicion. “And you? You two… are acquainted?”

Deacon wore a lazy smile. “Oh, Garvey and I, we go way back. In’t that right, Garvey? He didn’t used to be such a stick in the mud, but what can I say. Old age eats away at all of us differently.”

Charmer didn’t buy his bullshit for a second. “That right, Preston?”

The Minuteman stood stiffly beside the table, hands clenched at his sides, glare focused steadily on Deacon. “Not really how I recall it. But that doesn’t matter, right now. Deacon was just leaving.”

“Kicking me out already? Gotta say, thought I at least had another hour.” Tamping down his irritation, Deacon grinned up at the Preston. “We gotta deal, then?”

“No.”

Honestly, Garvey didn’t have a strategic bone in his body. Interest piqued, Charmer stepped forward. “Deal regarding what?” Training her eyes on Deacon, she asked, “What are you doing here?”

“Well, boss-lady, our _other_ boss-lady was hoping to secure a place for a couple ‘a new… packages… that recently arrived. Thought they’d be safest here.” As he spoke, he watched the gears turn in Charmer’s head. Yeah, Preston was naïve, all right. But Charmer – well, she might just save the day.

Canting her head sharply at her second in command, Charmer frowned. “And you’re saying no?”

“I…” Preston glanced between the pair, confusion and betrayal darkening his eyes. “You work for the Railroad?” He finally asked Charmer. It was already abundantly clear what he thought of the idea – clearly, anyone who was associated with Deacon immediately lost some of their shine in Preston’s view. Asshole.

Steeling her posture, Charmer crossed her arms over her chest. “That a problem for you? ‘Cause if it is, I can walk. You don’t need me anymore, anyway.”

Deacon was just as floored as Preston, but wasn’t stupid enough to show it. She’d walk out on the Minutemen for the Railroad? Just like that?

“The hell are you talking about? Nora – we still need you. We always will.”

There it was again – another man who knew Charmer’s real name, another man who wasn’t Deacon.

He felt sick.

“You know what?” Deacon stood suddenly, needing to regroup, get some space, get some _air_. “I’ll let you two hash this out. When you need me, I’ll be outside.” Then he darted past Charmer, careful to avoid her piercing gaze, and ducked out the doorway she’d left open.

A name was just a name, and you can’t trust anyone, anyway. It didn’t matter what they went by… or if they never chose to share it with you.

 

000

 

“You’re such an asshole.”

Deacon watched Charmer approach him from behind his sunglasses. He sat against the stone of the Castle, arms crossed over his chest, legs splayed out. Honestly, the Minutemen had it good here. Purified water, fortified walls, and a helluva lotta guns. Hell, they even set up a bar. What more could a guy ask for?

As the full weight of Charmer’s glare settled on him, Deacon forced himself to remain relaxed. “Yeah, I think we agreed on that before.”

Ooh, she was pissed. Absolutely livid. Her knuckles turned white at her sides. “Is this a joke to you?”

“I think it’d be faster if we talked about what isn’t a joke to me.”

Sometimes, he didn’t know when to shut up.

“Yeah? Let’s start with that, then. What’s not a joke to you, Deacon?”

He pretended her hard eyes didn’t get to him. “Honestly? All this knee pain. Really sucks the fun out of life, y’know?”

How she kept calm in the face of his incessantly cheeky attitude would always elude him. _No one_ had that much patience. Not Mother Teresa (he still doubted her existence), not Jesus (definitely never existed), not even Ghandi (well, he probably existed). She’d only ever lost her temper that one time in the Redford, and honestly, he’d deserved it. Just like he did now.

Yet still, she wouldn’t give in to her anger. The longer she stared down at him, the more eerily calm she grew. Honestly, it made him want to squirm on the spot.

“And me?” she asked finally, the anger swept out of her tone. All that was left was… exhaustion. “Am I a joke to you?”

Deacon would look back on this moment as being one of those crucial times in his life when he needed to say the right thing. Being impudent here was the wrong call – even _he_ knew that. But what else was he supposed to be? Honest?

How about evasive.

“I dunno,” he scratched at his wig. “Am I a joke to you? ‘Cause it sure as hell seems that way.”

Yup, that was the wrong thing to say.

“What the fuck are you talking about?” The anger returned, full force. Charmer tugged on her hair in frustration. “What have I ever done to you?”

“Are you loyal to the Railroad?” he asked suddenly, his mouth opening and forming words before he could stop himself. This was stupid. So stupid. What he really meant was _are you loyal to me_? And he couldn’t even get that out.

Fraud. Such a fraud.

Charmer scoffed at him. Looking up at her like this was really starting to put a kink in his neck. “Are you kidding me? Is that what this is about?” She pointed behind her. “You heard me back there. If Preston had a problem with me being a Railroad agent, then I was ready to walk. And you think I’m not loyal?”

“You still ready to walk?” he pushed. “Come to any sort of understanding with the boy scout? Or are you still gonna work on settlements that won’t accept harmless synths? People in need of help?”

Tossing her hands in the air, Charmer growled in frustration. “You’ve lost it, you understand? Lost it.” The way she looked at him, it was so… disappointed. It made his stomach twist into knots. “I worked it out with Preston. You can send your ‘packages’ here anytime, we’ll be ready for them. As for yourself… you can head back to HQ alone.”

She walked away from him, shoulders stiff and steps calculated, headed back towards where she and Garvey had been speaking. Deacon watched her until she was out of sight, frown marring his lips. He was such a fuck-up.

Just because you couldn’t trust anyone… doesn’t mean you don’t _need_ anyone.

 

000

 

He didn’t see her again for another two weeks. What she did during that time, he didn’t know. Wasn’t like he couldn’t have figured it out by talking to one of his countless contacts, but it just couldn’t go down that way. He didn’t _want_ to know. He had fucked up, and that was that. He needed to focus on his ops and let it go, because there was no way she’d forgive him after what he’d said.

And if that kept him awake at night… well, he’d just have to live with it. Being a Railroad agent meant you didn’t get a lot of sleep, anyway.

She waltzed back into HQ two weeks after their argument at the Castle. Everyone greeted her with smiles and warm welcomes – unsurprising, since it was Charmer, after all. Everyone loved her – even Glory, who had only ever loved her freakin’ minigun. Des came out of her office at the exact moment Charmer met Deacon’s gaze. She gave nothing away – not a hint of what she was thinking or feeling. In a way, he was proud. In another way… that nauseated feeling returned.

“Good to have you back, Agent,” Des greeted, her voice as warm as Deacon had ever heard it. “We have some things to discuss.”

Evidently, those things needed to be discussed in private. Deacon watched as Charmer was led back to Des’s office, while everyone else returned to work.

Everyone except Glory. Hardly a foot away from Deacon, she stared him down, expression blank but eyes hard. “You the reason why she stayed away for so long?” she finally asked, surprising him. Glory usually didn’t care about these things. Made a point to avoid them, in fact. That she was even asking him bespoke her fondness for Charmer.

“What makes you say that?” he asked innocently.

Glory frowned at him before looking off toward Des’s office. “Maybe the fact that you two were glued together at the hip until about three weeks ago.  And now she can hardly stand to look at you.”

Deacon smiled faintly. “Who knew you were so perceptive?”

Glory stepped towards him, expression hard. “Don’t fuck things up, Deacon. I like that woman. She’s good for us.”

Deacon didn’t have the heart to tell the heavy that he’d already fucked things up.

 

000

 

“Des gave us an assignment.”

It was Charmer’s voice that roused him from his fake sleep. He couldn’t tell if she had known he wasn’t really sleeping, or if she just didn’t care. He hoped it was one more than the other.

Rolling onto his back, Deacon stared up at his counterpart. “Yeah? You didn’t request someone else to tag along with you?”

Charmer arched a brow. “Should I?”

Deacon was a master at reading between the lines, but this was maxing out his limits. He couldn’t tell if she was extending an olive branch, or merely being professional. “I dunno. Is there another devilishly handsome guy around with the impressive ability to make an ass of himself?” It wasn’t much of an apology, but it was the best he could give.

Charmer at least smiled a little at that, if a bit reluctantly. “No, I think that’s just you. In fact, if I ever had to describe you, I think that’d be it.”

“Even the devilishly handsome part?”

She gave him a warning look. “Don’t push it.”

Smiling, Deacon sat up. “Then I guess we have an assignment.”

 

000

 

If Deacon had any proper sense of self-preservation – and more importantly, shame – he would’ve known not to open his mouth and risk angering an already unhappy Charmer and make their present fragile situation worse. But Deacon never really had much in the sense of self-preservation beyond saving himself from being mortally wounded, and he was notorious for being a _very_ shameless liar. So there was that.

“Your lieutenant has a crush on you.”

Charmer gave him a sharp look. Yup, she was still pissed. “You know what, we don’t have to talk.”             

That was true, but he couldn’t deal with the silence. Made him think too much. “Aah, so you already knew that.” He shrugged. “Of course you did. You know everything, don’t you?”

“I know that if you keep pushing my buttons just for the hell of it, I’ll give you a damn good reason to get another face change. Understand?”

Ooh, quite the threat. And he knew she could deliver. “Ten-four, boss.” He gave a mock salute and busied himself with orientating their location instead of pushing her on the matter further. It would have its time, and besides, he hadn’t been this far south in ages, really, and for good reason. The southern part of the Commonwealth was a risky place to be.

“Sun will be setting soon,” he noted. “Got any idea where we should shack up for the night?”

Charmer mulled this over. “If we head a bit east of here, there should be a house I cleared not too long ago.”

That got his attention. “Yeah? What were you doing all the way down here?”

Charmer shrugged. “A settlement was being harassed by supermutants.”

“And I assume these supermutants are dead.”

At that, she smiled. “Very much. As dead as dead can be.” 

“You know, that’d probably be creepy coming from just about anyone else. But you? You make it work.”

Charmer rolled her eyes. She began heading east, towards some destination she had locked away inside her head, and he followed diligently. After a five-minute silence – a silence that left Deacon itching to run away and hide from all his problems, since he could tell Charmer was working up to asking him something he probably didn’t want to be asked – Charmer glanced at him over her shoulder.

Just as he predicted, a familiar light was in her eyes, one that always lingered when she had something she wanted to say. He braced himself for what was to come next.

“What happened between you and Preston?”

Deacon exhaled deeply. That was literally the last question he expected to hear, after _why are you so good looking, Deacon?_ or _are you charming by nature or nurture?_ Okay, maybe she disliked him a little too much to be thinking those things right now. But Preston? Why’d that matter?

“What makes you think something happened between me and Preston? I mean, yeah, those cheekbones are to die for, but hey. Can’t say he’s really my type.” There you go, Deac. See if you can piss her off some more by being endlessly evasive, yeah? It’s not like you’re ridiculously relieved she’s even talking to you, or wondering if you’re dreaming or whatever. Nah. S’all good.

Charmer gave him a stern look. “You know something, Deacon? I’m pretty pissed at you. Remember why?”

He sucked that breath back in. Use your fucking words, Deacon. Don’t be a shithead. “Yeah, boss. I remember.”

“Good. So why don’t you just answer my question for once? You owe me that.”

She was right. She always was, wasn’t she? Staring down at his boots as he stepped over various debris and detritus, Deacon nodded reluctantly. He pressed his lips together, searching for some sort of starting point. A _candid_ starting point. God, it was like pulling teeth. For a while, Deacon had believed he was literally unable to tell any modicum of truth. Still kinda felt that way. But if he knew anything about Charmer… he’d have to learn that skill again, at least moderately.

After meeting Charmer’s questioning gaze for another second, he began.

“Once upon a time, the Minutemen were ready to help anyone. Human, synth, ghoul… although, on second thought, they never extended a hand towards a supermutant. Probably didn’t think they’d get it back... they _do_ like hands.” His eyes, covered by his sunglasses, looked out over the landscape as he thought. They had passed abandoned buildings, a church here and there, a diner. “Knowing that they’d help out where needed, I asked Preston to help me escort a package southwest of here. Glory hadn’t joined up yet and there weren’t many heavies to speak of back then – most were either busy running their own ops or getting hunted down by coursers. So I had to turn to the boy scout.”

By the look in her green gaze, Charmer was listening intently. Probably recognized this moment for what it was – one of the rare times in which Deacon would actually be honest. She looked… more open than usual. He could read her better, like her guard was down.

He wished he could see more of that.

“And the mission went south?” she asked, then chuckled a little grimly. “Well, so to speak.”

Deacon shrugged. “Technically, the op was a success. We placed the package in a safe settlement and got the hell out. It was on the way back to Lexington when… things took a turn for the worse. Long story short: we were attacked by three deathclaws. _Three_. It already seemed so futile… I didn’t think we’d make it. And when Preston got hit, he was down and out. Deathclaws didn’t even bother with him anymore, just assumed he was dead. So did I.”

Her lips were pressed together tightly, and Deacon guessed that she likely could intuit the end of this story. “So you left him. And that’s why he hates you.”

“Ooh, hates?” Deacon grinned finally, the hard part – the _truthful_ part – over.  “Didn’t know boy scout could feel anything beyond the indomitable call of duty and some nostalgic, hillbilly sense of national pride.”

Something he said must’ve been funny, ‘cause she cracked a smile at that. “You don’t give him enough credit.”

Deacon threw his mask back up. “And you do, boss?” The mask was in place, but his voice… it betrayed him, like it sometimes did. That same burning feeling he’d had about Charmer and Hancock came rushing back. Charmer and Preston? God, that was so much worse.

Shoving a lock of black hair out of her face, Charmer arched a brow. “I give credit where it’s due,” she said vaguely, marching ahead of him in order to conceal her face. Deacon watched her carefully. Sometimes, he wondered if Charmer acted this way around him – guarded and secretive and locked down – because _he_ did the same.

What if he were honest more often? Would she be, too?

What did it matter? People always lied, no matter what. Couldn’t trust anyone. Even if you wanted to. Really wanted to.

They came across a two-story house that managed to keep most of its walls intact, despite being closer to the blast site.  There was a familiar Railroad callsign chalked onto the siding, foretelling a cache hidden inside. Definitely Charmer’s work. The fact that she’d left a callsign and a cache behind, in case any other agent came by… He wished he could go back to the Castle and take what he’d said back. All of it.             

“Come on,” Charmer said, shoving open the door. She chained it behind the two of them while Deacon lit up a lantern he found on a dining table. It’d grown darker during their walk and was nearly pitch black out, now, a half-moon hanging in the sky above them, visible through the partially caved in roof.

“What’s in the cache?” he asked offhandedly, wondering what she thought was useful enough to leave behind.

Charmer shrugged. “Some food, couple of stimpacks and radaways, and some ammunition. Figured if any agent found themselves this far south, they’d be running short on luck.”

“You’re probably right.”

“Anyway, there are some sleeping bags tucked inside one of the cupboards. I’ll get a fire started for some food.”

They worked in silence; Deacon setting up the sleeping arrangements, Charmer making her famous Blamco Mac n’ Cheese. She kept stealing glances at him, but he couldn’t read them. When she wanted, she had a damn good poker face. No sunglasses necessary.

“You didn’t ever apologize?” she finally asked again as she handed Deacon a plate of food.

He didn’t need her to clarify – he knew they were still talking about Preston. “Never came up,” he said simply.

Of course, she didn’t buy that bullshit. “Really? You two never crossed paths again? He didn’t seem, oh, I don’t know, a little pissed that you gave up on him?”

Deacon clenched his teeth together. “Does it really matter? Garvey and I weren’t friends then, and we aren’t now. Saying sorry wouldn’t do anything for either of us.”

Charmer had been ready with a retort before that, but clamped her mouth shut now. She stared at Deacon with a mixture of anger, frustration, and sadness. “You really believe that?”

“I believe that you can’t trust anyone,” he said firmly. “No one. ‘Cause when you do, shit happens, and you can’t go back. I never promised Garvey anything, so he shouldn’t have expected me to hang behind and sign my own death sentence for him.”

Charmer set her plate on the ground, the ceramic clattering on the wood. Shit, he knew this would happen. Had expected it from the moment she said they had the assignment. Things would circle back to the argument they had at the Castle, and they’d just end up worse off than before.

He watched intently as she leaned back against a desk, her limbs stiff and her mouth pulled into a tight frown. Gears shifted behind her eyes, but he couldn’t get anything out of them. Couldn’t prepare himself for what she might say. And he found himself needing to do that, more and more. Needing to be prepared for things to go south with Charmer.

‘Cause it was gonna hurt. He couldn’t even lie to himself about it. He knew.

She sat for so long like that, he thought she wasn’t gonna say anything at all. Returning his attention to his food, he half-heartedly finished it and set the plate off to the side. He stared down into the lamplight, at the shadows it cast, at her boots on the floor right next to his.

“You really think you can’t trust anyone?” Charmer finally asked, her voice so quiet he almost thought he imaged her speaking. But he had never known her to sound so… heartbroken. Not even during those nightmares she had. This was worse.

He turned towards her, but she was staring down at her hands. Seeing things he couldn’t. Things he wanted to see. “The world’s not what it used to be, back when you were living in it,” he said, equally as quiet. “I… I’ve seen some of the worse things humanity is capable of. Worse than the bombs, the War. I’ve lost people.”

“We’ve all lost people,” she said sharply, heat rising in her tone.

He nodded. “Yeah, we have. It’s just… it was my own fault. Losing her.” Shit – shit, he did _not_ mean to say that. This wasn’t something they could discuss. This wasn’t something they could _ever_ discuss.

The anger she felt not a moment before simmered down. Charmer stared at him openly, her lips parted, as if some great secret had finally been revealed to her. As if she understood without him saying anything else what he was talking about.

As much as Deacon tried to keep people from knowing him, understanding him, he realized in that moment that Charmer did. She understood him. Because she didn’t push him to talk about it more. She just nodded her head, her eyes thoughtful and stormy. “I… I didn’t know. I’m sorry.” Then she sighed, the sound heavy and tired and too old for someone as young as she. “I am sorry, Deacon. But you can’t live the rest of your life trusting _no one_. You just can’t.”

“Maybe not,” he agreed. “But then again, being in the Railroad doesn’t really guarantee you a long life expectancy.”

Her fists tightened at her sides, and he knew that was the last thing she wanted to hear. “You can be fatalist all you want. Whatever. I get that you’re just going to keep pushing me away, no matter what I do. But there are other ways to live, Deacon. Better ways.”

His whole body vibrated with unease. She had never been so blunt before. Charmer… here she was, offering him a way out, a chance, and he knew he wasn’t going to take it. He couldn’t – he wasn’t ready. She already _knew_ that. But it fucking hurt, having to just shake his head, to dodge yet another chance extended to him, another lifeline.

“I hear you, boss.”

But that’s all he could say. You can’t trust anyone if you’ve gone too long on your own. Sometimes, you can’t fight what’s become second nature.

 

000

 

As soon as he saw her go down, something deep within Deacon broke, snapped right in half, taking most of his control and ingrained common sense with him. He should have known. _He should have known_. Heading this far south, without power-suits, without extra protection – he should have known this could happen. She could get hurt, _or worse._ She _was_ hurt.

His eyes darted around the battlefield frantically, assessing the situation, counting heads. There were too many supermutants. Too many for his one gun and his less talented method of taking them out. If he tried crossing the street to help her, he’d end up dead – and then so would she. It took every ounce of strength he had to plant his feet firmly on the ground and remain hidden behind cover – a rusted out old retro truck that had probably been some shade of red in the good ole’ days. ‘        

The cry that had wrenched from her chest echoed in Deacon’s ears – the pain, the surprise. He’d never heard her sound like that, and that’s how he knew. That she was hurt, _bad_. It was bad. Worse yet, the supermutants would’ve heard, too, and would close in on her soon.

He needed to move. To do _something_.

Darting towards an old blue truck for cover, Deacon pulled up the map of combatants in his head. Two muties to his right, another two down the alleyway adjacent to Charmer. He had his sniper rifle and a laser pistol – that was it. The rifle could do some damage, but it’d be slower… He’d need to scope them out, hit the right place to save bullets, to not waste precious time. The laser pistol was more of a last resort. Too weak for their tough skin.

He counted down from three in his head, chambered a bullet, and rose from cover. It was sighted too close, but Deacon made it work – shot one supermutant clear through the skull, spraying brain matter all over the Jamaican Plains mayoral office. The dead mutie’s partner looked on in surprise, but his reflexes kicked in. He charged towards Deacon, but was too late. Another clean shot through the head.

Adrenaline pumped thickly through Deacon’s veins. He could hear the other supermutants shouting, the scuffle of their leather boots on the ground. Charmer. He needed to cover Charmer before they got too close.

Rounding the truck, he darted from one pocket of cover to another until he came across where he’d saw her fall.

But she wasn’t there. A helluva lotta her blood was, but not her.

Deacon’s stomach twisted painfully into a knot. They got her – they got her and he was too late, he was –

“You gonna stand out in the open all night, or you gonna join me?”

The relief made his knees turn into jelly. Deacon swiveled about, his gaze immediately zeroing in on the missing woman. She had dragged herself several feet into the doorway of an old pawn shop, and half stood, half leaned against the doorjamb to get his attention.

Charmer. Thank God, Charmer.

One hand clutched her abdomen, completely covered in blood and getting worse. How she was even standing, he couldn’t fathom. He was by her side in a second, registering the nearing voices of the supermutants, the gasp she tried to smother as he wrapped an arm around her and led her further inside the shop.

“Stop,” she said, her voice cracking in pain. “I’ve gotta kill them.”

Deacon didn’t stop until he had pulled her underneath the counter, ushered her to sit. “No,” he said, and his hands were shaking. Utterly trembling, as if it were the middle of winter, had plunged his hands into the grey snow, and he was halfway towards getting frostbite. “I’ll kill them. You – you, take this.” He grabbed one of his shirts from his pack and thrust it into her hands. “Try to stop the bleeding.”

He worked on autopilot, taking one last look at her tired eyes and pale skin, before silently trudging back outside to handle the other two supermutants. _She’saliveshe’saliveshe’salive_ ran through his mind in rapid repetition, as if he was trying to reassure himself that he had touched her, he had seen her, it wasn’t all a dream. She was okay, for now.

The thought nearly derailed him enough to get him killed. He didn’t see the two supermutants round the corner, one with a submachine gun, the other with a machete. They saw him immediately, let out a war cry of sorts, something that sent shivers up his arms, and charged forward. The one with the gun apparently didn’t deem Deacon enough of a threat to waste bullets on, and that played in Deacon’s favor. The brute tossed the gun aside and grabbed the sledgehammer slung over his back with a beatific, gleeful smile. The muties charged towards him in unison, fully intending to beat him into a very large, very indiscernible puddle of blood and bone.

Fortunately for Deacon, he had Charmer’s combat rifle now, equipped with all of its fascinating mods which helped her completely eviscerate some hundreds of monsters over the past several weeks.  As soon as he fired it, he felt sure of himself. It took two bullets each to take them down – just two bullets each. Holy fuck, the hell did she make this gun with?

He shot them once more in the head just to be sure before he rushed back inside. Forgetting the weapon on a chair, he crouched down beside Charmer, who was growing paler by the second. Her eyelids fluttered, as if she were struggling to keep them open.

“Charmer – Charmer, come on. Don’t close your eyes, kay? You’ve had worse than this. I know. I _know_. Just don’t close your eyes.” His hands seemed to belong to someone else – they fluttered over her, removed her chest armor, lifted the shirt, examined the wound. He already had a stimpack out, had plunged it into her skin, watched as it struggled to contain the blood. A stimpack wouldn’t be enough. They needed to stop the bleeding, needed to get her to a doctor.

“I’m…” she sucked in a breath, wheezing, her hands weakly pulling at his own. “I’m… trying.”

“I know. You’re doing great – you’re strong, you know that? You’ll be okay.” He didn’t even realize he was speaking, couldn’t register the words. The blood. There was so much. So much, and he was just some fraud who could lie like nobody’s business, some shithead who couldn’t even stitch a wound. What was he supposed to do?

Charmer, even in her state, caught on to his distress. One weakly colored green eye peeked up at him from underneath thick lashes. She didn’t seem all there – like her mind was in two places at once. “In… in the military,” she coughed, “they’d use duct tape. I… have some in my pack.”

Duct tape. It seemed ludicrous, but Charmer was the pro here, the boss. He stood and grabbed the pack she’d left near the doorway, dug through it until he came across a small roll.

Taping someone’s skin together seemed macabre. It _felt_ wrong, or maybe that was just because it was Charmer’s skin he was trying to piece back together. Either way, after struggling to get it to stick to her wet skin, he succeeded. She fell into a blood-loss induced slumber, and he frantically searched for a radio.

 

000

 

He never thought he’d be happy to see Preston Garvey and his goons. In truth, Deacon had never been happier to see anyone in his life. Garvey had his musket drawn and led a group of four, including a doctor of sorts, through the rubble of Jamaican Plains, his head held high and eyes sharp.

“Garvey.”

Deacon had certainly earned the title ‘spook’. Five pairs of rifles pointed at him before Garvey called everyone off. He didn’t even bother exchanging pleasantries. The Minuteman looked as panicked as Deacon felt.

“Where is she?”

“In here.”

He led the group inside, watched in relief as the doctor immediately got to work. Didn’t even notice the tense silence that had fallen over the room as ever pair of eyes was trained on the wounded General.

After several minutes, Preston finally turned to Deacon. “What happened?”

Deacon was vibrating with anxiety. Couldn’t take his eyes off the doc, off the wound that had been revealed again, the stimpacks and various other drugs laying all around Charmer. “Supermutants. We were attacked on all sides. She didn’t see it coming.”

“And the supermutants?”

“Dead.”

Preston looked back at his General, his lips white, paler than the rest of him. “Good.”

Charmer didn’t wake up, and that was a blessing in itself. The doctor was stitching her up with a wicked looking needle. Charmer was tough, but the sight even made Deacon wince. She was being sewn up like a pillow. Like she wasn’t just skin and bone and blood.

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Preston shift. The Minuteman placed his gun on the countertop, removed his hat. He ran his hands over his short hair over and over again, the tension building up on his shoulders.

The argument he’d had with Charmer the previous night came back to him. The things she’d said that he’d disregarded so easily. The things that mattered to her.

His throat felt tight, like someone had wrapped their fingers around it and wouldn’t let go. “Preston.” Dark eyes turned to Deacon, broiling their own form of self-loathing within, their own guilt and worry and agony. “Preston, look… About before…” It was hard, forming those words. Any words that were too close to the truth.

But Preston just shook his head, eyes already back to Charmer. “Don’t. It’s not necessary anymore. We’re… we’re even, all right?”

The knots in his stomach untangled somewhat. “All right.”

 

000

 

Charmer woke three days later. He knew the exact moment when she did, because he’d been resting his head on the blankets of her bed and she jostled him as she moved.

“Charmer?” He didn’t recognize his own voice – coiled taut like a spring, heavy. “Take it slow.”

She tried sitting up, but clutched at her side before she got too far. Her eyes were a murky green, the color mutfruit’s leaves, and they settled on him wearily.

“How long?” she asked simply.

Knots were forming in his shoulders. “About four days.”

She seemed satisfied with this, for whatever reason. Nodding, she said, “Guess that’s better than two hundred years.”

He laughed. It felt like he hadn’t laughed in so long. “I bet anything feels better than two hundred years.”

“You’re not wrong.” Laying her head back against the pillow, Charmer exhaled slowly. “You hurt?”

Her hands played with the edge of the blanket, and he wanted so badly to just hold them, stroke her soft skin, feel the warmth of her body, the very real proof that she was alive and here with him. “Not much,” he replied softly. “Maybe a few images I can’t scrub outta my head, but nothing worse. Might give Amari a visit, get my eyes cleaned out, if you know what I mean.”

Charmer smiled at him, and his stomach dipped to his toes. She’d smiled at those synths in Ticonderoga like this. Soft, genuine. “I’d trade ya if I could.”

“Me too.”

The smile remained, and he felt so unworthy of it. So low. Charmer was alive, but she’d almost been killed because of him. Because he didn’t have her back.

Sometimes he swore she was a mind reader. “Don’t be an asshole and go blaming yourself, Deac. I got a little careless. It’s my own fault.”

His hands were fisted at his sides. “Not really seeing how that’s true from over here.”

She shrugged lightly, mindful of her stitches. “Those sunglasses obstructing your view? You could consider taking them off, sometime. Might be able to see me better.”

A smile worked its way onto his mouth. He couldn’t argue with her – she’d fire all his shots back at him. “Then where would the mystery – the excitement – go? Nah, boss. Can’t have you running off on me anytime soon.” He pointed at his glasses. “I know this is what draws you in.”

Rolling her eyes, Charmer sighed. “You’re right – it’s definitely not your sunny personality, since we both know you don’t have one.”

And there it was. He felt pieces of him falling back into place again. Because Charmer could stand to look at him – Charmer was _alive_ – and things would be okay. They would be.

You can’t trust anyone, but Charmer wasn’t just anyone. She was everything.

 

000

 

“Doc said you need to take it easy, y’know.”

Charmer glared at him. She was already bereft several guns and her pack, courtesy of Deacon, her new pack mule, and looking bare and small in just her lightweight armor with a single holster at her side. “I’m skeptical of anyone who practices medicine in a wasteland without universities to get a degree from.”

He scoffed, mostly to play along than anything else. “Yeah? Think we wastelanders are too dumb for you, now?”

A smirk broke out on her face, brightening her eyes, making her pale skin look healthier. “I didn’t say that.”

“You didn’t have to. Your pretention is stifling. Honestly, who needs a degree? We get on just fine, here. Some people die of dysentery every now and again, but y’know, you win some and you lose some.”

Charmer chuckled. “Whatever you say.”

“I _was_ saying that you need to take it easy. It feels like we’re running a fucking marathon.” He ran a hand over his wig, wishing he could wipe the sweat from his head. As usual, the wasteland’s sun beat down on the pair unforgivingly as they travelled back to HQ.

“I need to take it easy, or you do, old man?” The smile she gave him felt like something shared just between them. Something for his eyes only, no one else. It was playful, and seeing her like this, after watching her be cooped up in bed for week, was a damn relief. “Knees hurting again? Or is it your back this time? We can stop so you can catch your breath, if you want.”

“Ha-ha,” he deadpanned, but inside, he was soaring. “Keep it up. I’ll start accidentally dropping some of your stuff. There’s a rose-colored dress in here, y’know, washed and everything. That’ll be the first to go.”

The glare returned. “I dare you to.”

“Challenge accepted.”

He moved to open her pack, but before he could, she’d grabbed his arm with a disapproving stare. They stood there, unmoving, heat pooling on their shoulders, her hand burning hot on his skin. He stared down at it, at her pale and soft hand against his rough, tanned arm. There were scars on her hand he hadn’t noticed before, but they were light, as if extremely old.

Charmer stared down, too, a frown on her lips. Reluctantly, she pulled her hand away, her eyes becoming guarded once more. “Touch that dress and I’ll feed you to a deathclaw.”

Deacon tried to pick up their pace from before. That lightheartedness, that softness. He didn’t want her to retract – not again. “I somehow doubt that. You like me too much.”

She smiled at him, but it was a careful smile. “Maybe.”

 

000

 

She was having nightmares again. He knew because he refused to sleep anywhere that wasn’t right next to her, at least an arm’s length away. She’d caught on to his apprehension, but hadn’t commented on it.

They were in HQ. All the lanterns had been dimmed to their lowest settings. A few agents were mulling around in their respective areas, carrying on the work that didn’t wait for anyone to sleep, while he and Charmer were tucked behind the far brick wall, splayed out along the row of mostly empty mattresses. There was little privacy here. Deacon had never thought much on it before, but it was sitting at the forefront of his mind now. Charmer was squirming in her bed, fighting off some attacker known only to her, muttering things in a rough language every now and again. The same phrase, over and over, repeated so much that he had it memorized.

When she bolted upright, he knew something was different about this dream. She sat up, arms supporting her weight, and took in long, deep breaths. Her chest heaved with the effort, drawing his eyes, and she kept running a hand along her throat.

Normally when she had nightmares, he’d feign sleep as soon as she woke up. It seemed like a personal thing, like something he wasn’t supposed to witness. Tonight… it seemed even more personal. Like a secret he was never supposed to know. 

 “Deacon?”

Had she known he was awake? Her head canted towards him, though he couldn’t quite make out her eyes, as they were darker still with his sunglasses still on. Her voice, low, just barely reached his ears.

“Deacon. Are you awake?”

He shifted towards her, playing at being casual. “Yeah, boss. You okay?”

She seemed to stare at him silently for several moments. Whether she was debating answering his question or something else entirely, he couldn’t be sure. “Did you know I have a brother?”

That was outta left field. More alert, Deacon cleared his throat. He didn’t want to lie to her, but he didn’t want to tell the truth, either. What would Charmer think, if she realized he knew her entire life’s story? What would she think if she knew _his_ entire life story?

“I… what?” There. He didn’t have to lie.

Charmer paused before settling back into her bed, laying on her side in order to face him. “I… have a brother. He was in the vault with me. Someone took him.” At his silence, Charmer rushed on. “I didn’t tell you because I wasn’t sure if I could trust you. I wasn’t sure I could trust anyone, honestly. But I do. Trust you, I mean. And I… I’m looking for my brother.”

For the first time in a long time, words escaped him. Deacon couldn’t think of a single thing to say, truth or lie. Charmer was confiding something very personal to him, after all this time. To him. It might not be her name, but… maybe it meant more to her, than her name. Finally, he asked, maybe a bit stupidly, “Where do you think he is?”

He could just barely see her hand rise up to run through her short hair. “The Institute. They took him. Before I met you, I went to a detective. Nick Valentine. I found the man who took my brother. Nate… He’s at the Institute.”

A chill swept over his arms. Charmer had known more than he realized this whole time. But he shouldn’t have underestimated her. “So we’ll find him,” he said confidently. Is that what she wanted from him? Help? “Together. You and me.”

Her head rested into the comfy pillow she’d scavenged some weeks ago, seemingly content. “Yeah. We will.” She laid on her back, and he thought she was going back to sleep, but then she spoke again. “Deacon?”

“Yeah, boss?”

“Thank you. For everything.”

He bit his cheek. “Yeah. Of course. It’s… you’re welcome.”

 

000

 

She’d been talking to Tinker Tom for the past hour, humoring the techie about some project he was working on that could expel any possible bugs from the Institute out of one’s blood. No one else at HQ had given this the time of day – bugs? In their blood? – but there was Charmer, smiling and nodding and letting the man have his piece.

They were regrouping before their next assignment, whatever that might be. Des hadn’t gotten back to them yet and PAM wanted them to collect some things from a DIA cache when they went out again, so they had no reason to leave yet. Charmer wanted to check on some of the settlements she’d helped set up, but other than that, there wasn’t anything pressing going on for once.

So he watched her and repeated the conversation they’d had last night over and over in his mind. But his thoughts kept circling back to something in particular – something he wasn’t supposed to hear, wasn’t supposed to know. Those words she’d been muttering in her sleep.

Why he was stuck on that, he wasn’t sure. Charmer had had plenty of nightmares before, but this one was special in some way. Related to her brother, maybe? To the bigger picture, the woman that was Nora and not Charmer, the woman who had lived over two hundred years ago and had known a world so different than the one they now lived in?

Those words drifted in and out of his head. The way her voice broke on them. The way she begged.

“Stare at that wall any harder and I’ll start to think old age has really gotten to you,” he heard her say as she somehow materialized at his side, no longer across the crypt talking to Tom. He’d spaced, a rare moment.

He mock glared at her, though she wouldn’t know it. “You ever gonna let up with the old man jokes?”

“I’d be doing myself a disservice if I did.” She smiled at him. “So what’s on your mind? Wondering what geriatric hospital is best for a man of your age? Hmm, I’ll have to think about that.”

He shrugged. “If we’re talking about it, then you have to admit. I _have_ aged phenomenally.”

He didn’t miss the way her eyes sparkled. “I don’t have to admit anything. But really. What’s up?”

Mouth closing, Deacon thought long and hard about whether or not to bring it up. It wasn’t his place. Not at all. But she’d been so worked up. Shaken. And all those spikey, towering walls she’d built up around herself… she was starting to let them down a little, if only for him.

Making sure everyone else was out of earshot, Deacon decided to give it a try. “What’s _pra-stit-ye men-ya­_ mean?” The words were unfamiliar on his tongue, but years of speaking in different accents made them sound less awkward.

Charmer immediately stiffened. Her eyes shuttered up like a military fort, on complete lockdown, and she stared at him sharply. “What?”

He scratched at the back of his neck, regret pooling in his stomach. “You talk in your sleep.”

Clearly, she didn’t know this. Her eyes widened fractionally, but her mouth formed a thin line and her body was tense all over. He shouldn’t have brought it up – he realized that now – but she already knew that he knew and it was too late to take it back.

“When did I say that?” she asked in a level tone, avoiding the question but acknowledging it all the same.

He paused. “Before you woke up last night.”

Nodding, as if she expected as much, Zora sighed. “Yeah, I figured.” She looked away from him, off towards the main entrance to the crypt, her eyes darker than usual. “It’s Russian.”

“Didn’t realize you spoke Russian,” he said, to offer her a way out.

Charmer just nodded again. “Yeah.” Then she walked off, steps quick and spine unnervingly straight. He frowned as she ducked out of sight.

               

000

 

“It means _forgive me_ ,” she said later that day as she modded his sniper at the weapons station. He’d been hovering behind her, watching her hands work across the weapon with a comfort and familiarity he’d never felt himself, when she spoke. She said it in an offhanded sort of way, downplaying what he knew to be important to her. 

Studying the curve of her neck, the scar peeking out from under her hair, he shook his head. “We don’t have to talk about it. Shouldn’t’ve brought it up.” He was backtracking because he sensed she needed that. And whatever she needed, he knew he’d give it to her. He had to.

Sighing, Charmer glanced down the sniper’s sights. “It means _forgive me_ ,” she said again, “in Russian. We weren’t just fighting the Chinese at Anchorage. The Russians, too.” She paused, thoughtful. “I’d worked in Moscow not long before the war broke out. Embassy, diplomatic work. Stuff like that.”

“Why are you telling me this?”

She didn’t look at him, but said honestly, “Because you’re listening. Anyway, I’d gone back home to get my J.D. The war broke out, things got nasty, but they seemed to be… okay. For a little while. Finished my degree before I was deployed. Just barely.” She twisted something near the mag of the gun. “My brother, Nate, was the one who got drafted, but we all knew… he just wouldn’t have made it, if he went. Too soft. Too _young_.” Her jaw clenched. “I came home the night before he was supposed to ship out. My parents hadn’t told me what had happened, but when I found out… I took his uniform. Showed up when they called out our family name. No one cared that I was Nora, not Nate. Didn’t even bat an eye.”

The air in his chest felt heavy, cemented, as if he’d frozen from the inside out. Nora. _I was Nora_. She’d never acknowledged her real name in front of him, not once. Either she was getting sloppy, or…

“So I went to Anchorage,” she continued, not even noticing Deacon’s reaction to her name, or more likely pretending not to notice. “Fought there for a while. It was ugly, just… dark. It was literally dark there – the sun had set for the rest of the year when I’d arrived.” A muscle worked in her jaw. She kept twisting the gun in her hands, adding things here, removing them there. “I’d been there for six months when I got captured. By the Russians, not the Chinese. That’s… that’s what my dream was about.”

“And the scars,” he added without really asking, without really registering that he was doing so. He thought he’d known everything about her, about the woman who used to only go by Nora, but that wasn’t true. She’d bested him and didn’t even know it. Then the realization dawned on him, and he felt… anger. “They tortured you.”

Charmer shrugged, but the movement was stiff. “That was their job,” she said, her tone light but her eyes hard. “That’s war.” 

“Don’t do that,” he said, deadly serious, much to his own surprise. Or maybe not. He wasn’t sure anymore. “Don’t act like that means nothing. That’s… that’s fucked up, Charmer.” Charmer, because he couldn’t say Nora. Not yet. Not now.

“It is fucked up,” she agreed in a perfunctory sort of way. “It is. But how the hell else am I supposed to deal with it?” Finally, she turned those sharp-edged green eyes on him, settled the full weight of her pain on him, and he felt terrible. “Really, tell me. How else do I handle that?”

He couldn’t hold her stare. “I don’t know.” It was a quiet admission, felt a lot like defeat. He had all this anger and sadness inside him that he didn’t know what to do with, couldn’t direct at anyone – because they were two-hundred years dead – and couldn’t compartmentalize. The scars. He could see them on her now, more clearly than before. Stark and white and red. Evidence that he might not fully understand this woman.

“Me either,” she muttered, checking the scope of his rifle once more before resting the weapon on the table, finished.

But there was still something left of this story, something she hadn’t mentioned, had circumvented like he would have done. “But you… were asking for forgiveness.” It just didn’t make any sense. “For what?”

The look she gave him would’ve sent chills down his spine, were she anyone else. Would have made him turnabout and run, never look back. But this was Charmer. That haunted look, that darkness in her eyes… it was _Charmer_.

 “Because I killed them,” she said softly, but her tone had an edge to it. “Every single one of them.”


End file.
